


whispering images

by skuls



Series: X Files Rewatch Series [26]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s05e07 Emily, Episode: s08e01 Within, Episode: s08e02 Without, Episode: s08e05 Invocation, Episode: s08e13 Per Manum, Episode: s08e14 This is Not Happening, F/M, mentions of - Freeform, weird season 8 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 21:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14679648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: During his abduction, Mulder realizes that Scully’s daughter, Emily, is still alive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i pretty much decided to write this particular fic based off an inability to decide which weird-ass emily s8 au i wanted to do; this was the preferred scenario. i probably channeled california winter and #2 of november 27, 1973 way too much, but. this was interesting!  
> i used a hodgepodge of the mythology from s8, mostly from within, without, and this is not happening, but i also included references to deadalive, mostly because i’ve always headcanoned that some version of the virus that made mulder... dead... could’ve been used to fake emily’s death in emily. so that kind of plays a role.
> 
> i tried to pay tribute to the sims (since i think that got equally, if not more, screwed than the poor van de kamps and i think they have equal footing as emily’s parents, of course), but i also didn’t linger on them as much as i might’ve in a different story. mostly because i figured emily wouldn’t remember them very well. so that’s why they’re not mentioned in the story as much as they might could be.
> 
> warning for depictions of the brief snippets of mulder’s abduction we actually see in the show.

_"It begins where it ends... in nothingness. A nightmare born from deepest fears, coming to me unguarded. Whispering images unlocked from time and distance."_

\-- Dana Scully, 5x07 _Emily_

 

They were trying to erase the evidence, getting rid of the proof by going after Gibson Praise. That much was clear, but all the facts weren't. Scully knew that they were going after Gibson, but she didn't know who else they were looking for. Who else they had taken away.

\---

The ship lifted off, leaving the earth behind. Leaving behind any immediate chance of rescue he had. Mulder swallowed back a sob, the protesting scream in his throat. He'd heard Scully calling for him, had screamed for her again and again but she hadn't heard. They hadn't let her hear. A tear rolled down the side of his face and he made no move to wipe it away, unable to. He couldn't move.

Everything hurt. The bounty hunters unattached Mulder from the mechanisms and he almost fell over, limp and exhausted and full of pain. His throat was raw from screaming for Scully. A drop of blood trailed down his wrist from where he'd been attached and he winced. What seemed to be a hospital gown was shoved at him and he slipped it on, foggy and sluggish.

One of the bounty hunters yanked him to his feet, dragging him towards what appeared to be a door. Mulder grunted in pain, whimpered a little as they roughly went around the corner, but the hunter didn't pay attention. He kept dragging Mulder down the colorless hall, a hard grip on his arm.

They came to some chamber thing, a wide space where the abductees were clustered on mattresses on the ground. Teresa Hoese huddled with her husband, Billy Miles slumped against a wall with his head in his hands. There were abductees Mudler didn't recognize, a few he guessed weren't from Oregon. A few that looked to be about teenage age, but most of them were adults. The bounty hunter flung him down on a mattress, and Mulder groaned with pain, curling into a ball. He wanted to call for her again, but he found himself unable to speak. It didn't matter; he knew she couldn't hear him. He didn't move, slumped bonelessly on the mattress. He heard the bounty hunter walking away.

They'd taken away everything but her cross, that she'd given him in the foyer of her apartment when she kissed him goodbye. He fumbled for it, closing his hand over it, immensely grateful they hadn't taken it. He wanted to feel everything of her that he could. He never should have left her. He wrapped his fingers around the cross, but the chain was short; the cross itself slipped out of his fingers, back into the hollow of his neck. Mulder gave up, lay down on the mattress and blinked back tears. He missed her so much that it hurt.

“I used to have a necklace like that.”

The voice was small, a kid's voice. Mulder rolled over a little and saw the occupant of the mattress next to his. It was a little girl who couldn't have been more than five or six, tangly red-gold hair past her shoulders and blue eyes rubbed red around the edges like she'd been crying. She was curled into herself in a protective sort of manner.

Mulder felt a strong pang of sadness in the pit of his chest. He couldn't help but think of his sister, scared and alone with no one to comfort her. He couldn't have saved her. But he was here with this little girl, and even if he couldn't save her either, maybe he could help her feel safe, forget about where she was. The way his sister never had felt. He swallowed back the pain and said, “Yeah? A cross like this?” in an attempt to make conversation.

The girl nodded, rubbing at her eyes with her fists. “Uh-huh, that's what it was called, I think. A cross. A lady gave it to me because I thought it was pretty.”

Something about that story felt familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it. “It is pretty,” he offered awkwardly, trying to offer what comfort he could. The girl nodded again, burying her face in her knees.

The story—the girl herself—continued to feel bizarrely familiar in a way that Mulder couldn't place. And then it hit him, the realization: she looked like Scully. Just a little bit, but she did. Mostly, she reminded him of an old picture he'd seen of Scully and Melissa as children on Scully's mom's mantle, lined up stiff-straight in sailor suits and the faded color of old photographs as they smiled into the camera…

He remembered what had happened December of 1997. Scully's daughter, the serious little girl she'd found in California. At one point, Scully had told him that the only reason she'd found her is because the girl was nearly identical to the way Melissa had looked as a child.

“Sweetie?” Mulder asked, feeling a little like he might pass out, but holding onto the necessity of this question. “Is your name Emily? Emily Sim?” It was impossible, Scully had been with her when she died, it couldn't be, but the body. The body had disappeared. They'd stolen the body and left the cross…

Six. It was November of 2000; Emily Sim would be six. It was impossible, but then again, Mulder dealt in impossible things.

The girl blinked in surprise, but she mumbled something that sounded like, _Yeah,_ looking away from him _._ She wiped her nose with the back of her wrist.

“You're Emily?” he asked again. He tried to prop himself up on his hand and winced as pain shot out from the wounds in his wrist—so severe he thought he might fall unconscious—but he watched her for an answer. The girl nodded, watching him back in a careful sort of way, like a wild animal, protective and on-guard.

Mulder let himself collapse limply against the mattress, exhausted. Scully's daughter, the little girl They'd stolen and used and tossed aside. The girl Scully had wanted to adopt, who she'd given her cross so she wouldn't be scared. The feverish little girl he'd carried to the hospital, waited for the ambulance out front and felt her for a fever, the girl he'd been mentally preparing himself for being a normal part of his life, if he'd wanted to keep seeing with Scully after she adopted her. The girl they thought they'd buried a couple of days into a brutal January. She was _alive_. “My name is Mulder,” he said in his gentlest possible voice. “I know your mother.”

Dizziness hit him like a wave and he closed his eyes as darkness overtook him.

\---

The men who all looked alike came back sometime after the man, Mulder, fell asleep. Emily rolled into a ball, hiding her face in her knees and hoping that they wouldn't see her. They picked someone else and she breathed out a sigh of relief. She'd been here for what seemed like maybe two days and she already knew she didn't want to go. She heard how much people screamed when they went.

She wanted Mulder to wake up so she could ask him more questions. He said he knew her mother, and Emily wanted to know where she was. She'd wondered about her mother for what felt like forever. She thought she could remember having a mother, a long time ago. A mother and a dad and a nice house with lots of toys and pretty clothes. She knew she didn't have that anymore, but she wished that she did. She wanted it all, a mother and a dad and a good life. She wanted to get out of here, even if she just went back to the children's home, but it'd be better if she went to a new home where she could have that. She wondered if Mulder could help her. He seemed sort of familiar, but she didn't know why.

She fell asleep for a little while and woke up again hours later. A lady in the last children's home she'd been in had told her to go to sleep when the sun went down and wake up when it came back up, but she couldn't see the sun here. She looked around the room again, and saw most of the other people in varied states of sleep or awake. The husband and wife huddled together on one mattress. There were screams coming from down the hall.

Mulder was still asleep, smears of red along his cheeks and arms and seeping through his clothes. Blood. Emily thought blood was green when she was little, she thought she could remember bleeding green in a hospital when she was little, but when she scraped her knee at the children's home, or when the bad doctors took blood, it was always red.

A lot of times when Emily slept, she dreamed of the life she'd had before she came to the children's home. She didn't remember it well, because it was a long time ago and Miss Sheryl told her that most people didn't remember being that little, but she did remember it. A series of images, her mommy's voice, being carried on her daddy's shoulders. But she didn't know who they were or how much was real.

She thought maybe she could remember Mulder, like she could maybe remember a mother or a daddy, but she didn't know why. She wanted to know. She wondered if she could remember Mulder and a daddy because they were the same person.

In bare feet, Emily snuck over from her mattress onto Mulder's and poked him in the forehead. He groaned in a way that scared her—maybe she had hurt him—and she scrambled back, but not too far. She still wanted to ask him questions. “Wake up,” she said in her nicest voice (Miss Sheryl from the home had said you should always ask nice if you want people to do things for you).

Mulder groaned again, keeping his eyes closed. “Where am I,” he mumbled.

“On the plane,” Emily said. Someone had called it a ship, but she knew it wasn't a ship because ships went in water. Planes flew, so they had to be on a plane.

He opened his eyes, blinking like he was exhausted. “Emily?” he said in a muddled voice, like he was trying to talk through something.

“Uh-huh.” Emily sat back, watching him wake up.

Mulder reached up to rub his face, groaning a little as he did so. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Uh huh,” Emily said again. She wanted to be patient, like people were always telling her to be, but she didn't want to wait; she wanted to know, right now. “Are you my daddy?” she asked Mulder.

His face went nearly white as she spoke, eyes widening with shock. And then he shook his head, blinking a few times rapidly. “No, I'm not.”

Emily tried not to cry at her disappointment. “But you said you knew my mother,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “And I remember you, I think, and I know I _had_ a daddy…”

“We knew each other a long time ago,” Mulder said, a little sadly. “When you were three. I met you a few times. But I'm not your dad.”

Emily wiped her eyes again, her nose, and tried really, really hard not to cry. She hated crying in front of people, it was embarrassing and the big kids called her a baby, but it was really hard not to cry here. “Who's my mommy?” she whispered.

Mulder swallowed. He sat up on the mattress, slowly, and leaned back against the dirty wall. “It's complicated,” he said after a long time.

Emily buried her face in her knees. “ _How_?”

Mulder sighed a little; she could hear it even if she couldn't see it. “When you were little, you lived with your first mom and dad,” he said after another long time. “The Sims. Roberta and Marv… no, Marshall. Roberta and Marshall Sim. They were your adoptive parents. Do you know what adoptive means?”

Emily wiped her face before looking up. “Means you go to live with new parents that didn't give birth to you, but they're still your parents and they still love you,” she said, pushing hair behind her ears. “Some of my friends at the children's home got adopted. I wanted to get adopted, but they told me I couldn't get adopted. It wasn't allowed.”

Mulder looked sadder, and she wondered why. She continued on, uncertain: “Are they dead? My adopted parents?”

Mulder nodded. “I'm sorry, Emily.”

Emily's chin was trembling. She had expected something like this, most of the kids in the home either had dead parents or lost parents or bad parents, but it was still sad. The mommy and daddy she remembered weren't alive, and they weren't going to come rescue her and take her home. “But you… you said you knew my mother,” she said quietly, trying not to sob.

“I know your birth mother,” Mulder said quickly. “The woman who gave you the cross.”

Emily looked at the necklace around Mulder's neck. She remembered the lady who gave her the cross necklace, her red hair and her kind eyes. She thought maybe the lady had promised to come see her soon. She'd always thought the lady was a social worker, like Miss Sheryl. But that couldn't be… “The necklace?” she asked softly. “The one like yours?”

Mulder touched it with one finger. “This is the same necklace,” he said just as softly. “Your mother found it after you died. She gave it to me before I was taken.”

Emily's eyes widened. “She's my mommy?” she whispered. “For real? What's her name?”

“Scully,” said Mulder, and the words sounded like they hurt, for some reason. “Dana Scully.”

She closed her eyes and sniffled. Dana Scully. She had a mommy and daddy who were dead and that was sad, but she had another mommy who was still alive. Who gave her a necklace. “Is she here?” she asked. “Is she gonna be here?” And she meant: _If she comes here, will she take me home?_

“No,” Mulder said in a voice so fierce that it startled Emily. But he looked at her and seemed to see what she was thinking, and added quickly, “But you won't be here forever, either. When we get out of here, I'll help you find her.”

Emily shot him a suspicious look. She was used to people saying things they didn't mean or weren't gonna do. It happened all the time.

“I promise,” Mulder added in a quiet voice. “I'll make sure you're safe.”

“You promise?” Emily asked, suspicion still lining her voice.

“I swear.” He held up his pinkie to pinkie swear.

He was giving Emily a look that made her want to believe him. She wanted to believe him. If she had a mommy out there, she wanted to meet her. She wanted to be safe. And besides, her best friend Anna had told her that you could never break a pinkie swear or else something bad might happen, like maybe even dying. “Okay,” she said, linking pinkies with him briefly. “If you swear.” Mulder nodded seriously as he let go. Emily nodded back.

She stood from the edge of the mattress and went back over to her own, repeating in her head, _Roberta. Marshall. Dana._ She wanted to remember their names. Her parents she didn't remember. Roberta and Dana were really pretty names. Roberta was the one who sang her to sleep, but Dana had given her the cross.

A piercing scream came echoing from down the hall, louder than before, and Emily jumped, huddling up together in a ball. She didn't want to scream like that. She buried her face in the mattress to try and hide; she wished she had a blanket to hide under.

“It'll be okay,” Mulder said from his mattress, but his voice shook like a leaf. “It's going to be okay.”

\---

“Tell me about when you knew me before,” said Emily. “I'm bored.” It was scary, where they were, but it was also super boring. She wished she had books to read, or crayons, or something.

Mulder seemed groggy, half asleep, but he rolled over to face her. “It was after your adoptive parents passed away,” he said gently. “Sc—Dana wanted to adopt you, so you could come live with her, and she wanted me to come down to California to testify about why she'd be a good mother to you.”

Emily grinned in a comforted sort of way. After all this time of being told that she couldn't be adopted, it was good to know that someone had wanted her. Wanted to be her mom. But there was one thing that didn't make sense. Her friend Sean remembered his birth mother, but he said the state wouldn't let him live with her because she was a bad mother. But she didn't remember Dana. Did the state take her from Dana because she was a bad mother? “Why did Dana have to adopt me?” she asked. “If she was my birth mother. Is it cause the state took me away cause she wasn't a good mommy?”

Mulder looked briefly horrified. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, no, they didn't take you away. And Dana wasn't a bad mother.”

“So why…”

“Dana… It's a long story, Em, but some bad people… took you away from Dana when you were a baby. And they didn't tell her where you were. So when she found you again, she wanted to adopt you, but you hadn't been living with her before because you of that.” Mulder’s voice sounded funny, like it was a hard story to tell.

Emily bit her lower lip. “Were my other parents bad people?” she asked softly. “Roberta and Marshall?”

“No.” Mulder shook his head immediately. “They didn't know about the bad people. They… they just wanted to take good care of you. And when they… couldn't anymore, Dana wanted to take care of you then because she finally knew what had happened to you. So she called me and asked me to come to California.”

Emily bit her lip again. She wasn't sure she liked that story, or understood it, but there was nothing she could do about it. She wanted to hear more about when Dana actually wanted to adopt her. “Where was I?” she asked after a while. “When you came to California?”

“You were living in a children's home until they decided whether or not Dana could adopt you,” Mulder said in a wistful sort of way. “And you and Dana were sitting on the ground coloring. I think you were coloring a carrot? No, it was a potato, actually.” Emily giggled a little. “So that was when I met you for the first time,” he finished.

“And I was three?” Emily asked, tapping off years on her fingers. “Three years ago?”

“Mm-hmm.” Mulder looked away, a little sadly. Emily didn't know why. “And then you… you were in the hospital for a little while.”

“And then they took me away,” Emily said, spreading her fingers flat on the mattress. “Again. Why did they take me away again? If Dana wanted me? Why didn't Dana take me home? Did she not know where I was again? She found me before.”

Mulder still wasn't looking at her. “Dana… Dana didn't even know they took you,” he said. “They told her you were dead so she wouldn't… She didn't know. She wouldn't have let them take you again if she'd known.”

“Oh.” Emily stared at her hand, the freckles along the back of it. “I wish she'd known so they wouldn't have taken me again.”

Mulder sniffled a little. “Me too,” he answered thickly.

Emily traced a faded stain on the mattress. She was cold and sleepy. She wanted to go home. She wished she could have a real bedtime story, one that wasn't so sad.

“So… so where were you, Emily?” Mulder asked her finally. “Where did they take you? Do you know?”

“A hospital for a little while, I think. And then the children's home, since I was four.” She looped the tip of her finger around the stain again and again. “And then some men came to get me and told me I had to come with them. That was not that long ago. They brought me here. I didn't wanna go, though. I don't like it here.”

“I know. I don't like it either.”

Emily poked the stain a couple of times sadly before looking back up at Mulder. “Are you Dana's boyfriend?” she asked lightly, because she was wondering and he seemed like he liked her a lot.

Mulder coughed a little in surprise. “Um, yeah,” he said awkwardly. “I guess I am.”

Emily grinned a little at that.  “Are you gonna marry her?” she prodded.

“Oh, I dunno about that.” He smirked at her and immediately grimaced as a drop of blood dripped down his face from the wounds in his cheeks. Emily looked away; she hated blood a lot. She knew it must hurt. Mulder wiped it away with one finger, and finished, “Maybe someday, though.”

“Do you miss her?” she asked. She thought she might. She thought she might miss all of her parents, Roberta and Marshall and Dana. She wished she could remember them better.

“So much.” He looked away, pressing his fingers against the bloody spot on his cheek.

Emily curled up on the bed, folding her hands under her head. “Do you think we'll see her again?” she whispered, hair falling in her face. She brushed it back. “Will she come save us? Dana?”

“I have to believe that, Em,” said Mulder gently. “I do.”

Emily scrunched up, closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep. She wanted to feel safe again. She wanted to be somewhere else. She wished that They hadn't taken her away so much. She repeated the names in her mind again and again: _Roberta, Marshall, Dana._ Two parents she might never know, and one she still could.

\---

They were standing over her, the men who looked alike, and she was curled up in the corner with her hands over her ears. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No. Don't wanna go.” One of the men grabbed at her arm and she huddled further into herself, yanking away and shrieking.

“Hey!” It was a loud, angry voice. And suddenly Mulder was standing beside her, off balance but protective. “Leave her alone,” he snapped, an arm held out in front of her.

Emily didn't want to look, but she did. The men who looked the same didn't look happy; one drew closer to them menacingly, and Emily yelped, ducking behind Mulder and shutting her eyes.

“Em, it's okay,” Mulder said, and his voice was shaking but he still sounded fierce and angry. “Leave her alone. Take me instead.”

The men didn't say anything. They never did. Neither did any of the other abductees—not loudly, but Emily could hear them whispering. She rubbed her tearstained face against her sleeve.

“She's just a kid,” Mulder said, more insistent. “You could get more experiments out of me. I'm stronger. Just… just take me when you'd normally take her. Please. Please.”

When no one said anything for a moment, Emily opened her eyes again, cautiously. The men were looking at Mulder, and they looked satisfied. One of them reached out and grabbed Mulder, yanking him forward. He stumbled but he went with them, walking between them as they held his arms.

“Mulder?” Emily asked, her voice scared. She hated being scared. She didn't want to cry more. She didn't want to be all alone.

“Em, it's okay,” Mulder started, but his words dissolved into a groan as they yanked him by his sore wrists. And then they were gone, around the corner, and she couldn't see them anymore.

A couple of the other people were looking at her. The nice-ish lady who had said something to Emily when she was crying when they first got on the plane looked like she was going to come over, but her husband stopped her with a hand on her arm. One of the teenagers made a loud sniffing sound, and the other put his arm around him. But no one came to talk to her.

Emily sat back down on the mattress and covered her ears again. She didn't want to hear. She started repeating the names in her mind again: _Roberta, Marshall, Dana. Roberta, Marshall, Dana._ It'll be okay, she reminded herself. Dana would come and save them. She and Mulder would go back home soon. She was gonna have a home and a mom. And maybe someday Dana and Mulder would get married.

She thought about playing outside at the nursing home, climbing trees and drawing with chalk with her friends. She thought about reading the books from the bookshelf, or someone reading a story to the kids at night. She thought about the house she lived in when she was little. She pretended she wasn't, but she waited for Mulder to come back. She didn't want to be alone.

\---

He fell asleep in the chair, washed through with pain. He could barely think straight. He drifted, limply, trying to grasp onto anything solid, anything to ground him.

The image of Scully swam up before his eyes. He didn't know where it came from, but there it was: Scully curled up asleep on the couch, file open on the coffee table and papers scattered about. Her glasses were pushed up on her forehead, her hair rumpled. Her hand over her stomach, almost protectively. She was wearing one of his shirts.

A thickness rose in Mulder's throat, an urging. There were so many things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her that he was okay, even though he'd be lying through his teeth. That he missed her, that he loved her, that he'd see her again. He didn't know if this was real or a hallucination, if she could hear him, but he had to try. He reached out and felt nothing, grasping at air. “Scully,” he whispered. “Scully, it's me.”

Scully turned over, her hand pressing hard over her stomach in a protective sort of way, mumbling something in her sleep. It might have been his name.

All the things he wanted to tell her, but she had to know about Emily. That was the important thing, making sure Emily was safe. “Scully, she's alive,” Mulder said, praying that she could hear him. “Emily is alive. She's here on the ship with me.”

Scully shifted in her sleep, rolling onto her back; her glasses fell over her face as her eyes opened. “Mulder?” she said groggily.

Mulder jolted awake, still pinned in place in the chair. A tear rolled down the side of his face. He hadn't realized how much he missed Scully until he saw her. He wanted to go home.

\---

Scully had a doctor's appointment directly after the missing child case, the Billy Underwood reappearance. The unintentional revelation about Doggett didn't quite leave her mind as she lay on the table, wand moving over her stomach and the baby's heartbeat pulsing through the room. Doggett had lost a child. She understood the man better than she thought, understood him through Mulder's lost sister and her own lost daughter. She remembered the pain of the Underwood family, their lost little boys. The one saved and the one they'd never get back. Lisa Underwood had been pregnant when Billy disappeared, her second son had lived in the shadow of his brother. It was hard not to feel a connection to all that, even underneath Doggett's own pain. At least it was easy to hide. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the baby, the life growing inside of her. She knew it was impossible at this early in the pregnancy, but sometimes she told herself she could feel it.

It was hard, not to think of Emily in these motions of becoming a mother again. Not to mourn her. She didn't want to do that to the baby, have it feel the weight of a sister they would never know—she didn't want to do it to Emily, a girl she barely knew and who she'd barely even been a mother to. But it was impossible not to think of her in moments like this. She'd thought of Emily almost constantly during the IVF and now… The daughter she hadn't known she had, the daughter they'd made against her will and taken away from her to subject her to a life of suffering. It filled her with an indescribable fury, made her want to hurt people and defend this new child with an unseen ferocity. She didn't think of Emily often, in an attempt to distance herself from the painful, confusing memories, but when she did, it always hurt like a fresh wound. There were too many painful things now, Mulder being gone and memories of her daughter and her fears of this new baby. She could understand the pains of Doggett and the Underwoods better than they'd know.

She slept with her hand over her stomach that night in a protective fashion, an attempt to hold it together. To remind herself that she wasn't completely alone.

The next day, a case passed their desk. A plea from an employee of a children's home in New Mexico, a Sheryl Harrington. She said that men from the government had taken away one of the children who lived in the home and wouldn't give much of an explanation for it. She'd been gone for nearly two months now. No clear idea of when or if she'd be back. Sheryl was concerned, her theories aligned with the types of things Mulder would say. The child had a strange past, she said, and protocol like that certainly wasn't normal. She feared the child was in danger.

The child's name was Emily.

Scully denied the case. She felt horrible, felt like she was betraying the job or that poor little girl who was probably frightened and alone, but she didn't know what else to do. She knew the case would be entirely too hard. She gave out excuses to Doggett, sliding off of her tongue too easily: it wasn't an X-File, local PD could handle it, it would be too personal for him after the case they'd just had. (He gave her an irritated, wounded look that suggested exactly what he thought of that—which she probably deserved after everything that had happened on the manhunt for Mulder, but all things considered, she didn't particularly give a shit.)

Skinner didn't comment on the fact that she denied the case. She wasn't sure how much he actually knew—she'd never discussed what had happened with Emily with him—but she was grateful either way.

She had troubled dreams full of Mulder and Emily, hurt and hungry and in danger. Mulder comforting Emily. Emily crying and trying to hide it. Both of them scared. It left Scully shaken and teary, wondering what her subconscious was trying to tell her. She didn't understand it. Emily was dead, but Mulder was alive, she told herself. He had to be alive. Any other option, that the dream could be some terrifying, muddled result of Mulder and Emily's spirits visiting her or some other scenario too horrible to imagine, was unthinkable. He had to be alive. It was just a dream. There was no way that seeing them together meant that Mulder was dead, too.

\---

Emily had another dream.

She dreamed about her first mom and dad ( _Roberta and Marshall,_ she reminded herself) and a day in the park just after her birthday. Her dad carried her in on his shoulders and her mom pushed her on the swings, lifted her up to go down the slide. They both erupted into giggles when she caught Emily at the end. The sun was warm and Emily's sneakers dug into her mother's rib cage as she clung to her neck, watching her dad pretend to use the monkey bars over her shoulder. She laughed so hard her stomach hurt.

And then she wasn't in the park. She was in the hospital and it hurt and the doctor told her she had to keep it a secret, how much it hurt. Her first mommy screamed at the doctor outside, and then she was gone. Her mommy was gone and her daddy was gone and she couldn't find them.

A woman with bright hair and nice eyes gave her a necklace. She sat with her on the floor and colored. Her name was Dana. She asked Emily if she might want to come home with her in a quiet, embarrassed voice. Emily didn't know what she wanted.

Mulder came and made a funny face on the floor. She know who he was now. He picked her up and carried her out to the car, Dana worried and pale at his side.

She went to the hospital and it didn't stop hurting. They drew blood and it ran green. Dana shouted and chased people, Dana hovered at her side the entire time. Or at least a lot. She left sometimes, and it made Emily feel scared if only because Dana seemed like a strong person who could protect her.

When she left one time, someone who was maybe a nurse snuck in and injected her with something that made her feel sleepy and heavy and really, really bad.

Dana lay down beside her and stroked her hair while Emily got sleepier and sleepier. It looked like she was crying. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she whispered. Her cool lips brushed Emily's hot forehead. “I'm so, so sorry.” A tear hit Emily's chin. Was Dana crying? Emily wanted to cry, too, because it hurt so much, but she was so tired.

Dana stayed beside her, her head next to Emily's on the pillow until Emily drifted off to sleep. And after that, she didn't remember anything.

Emily dreamt, drifting. She tried to sleep a lot so she wouldn't have to be awake and afraid, or think about her lost parents. She slept so she couldn't worry about where they'd taken Mulder, or if they'd take her next.

\---

Mulder was hurt worse than before when they brought him back. Blood on his face, under his nose and along his cheeks, blood on his chest and wrists and ankles. It made Emily start to cry.

She tried to hug him after the same-looking men left him on the mattress. Mulder hissed with pain when she threw her arms around him and whispered, “Not so tight,” but he did wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Are you okay, Em?” he asked quietly, his voice raspy.

“I was scared,” Emily hiccuped, moving back on the mattress.

“Mm sorry,” Mulder mumbled. “Didn't want them to take you.”

Emily sniffled. “Did it hurt?”

“Not…” He coughed hard, raspily into his elbow. “Not too bad,” he finished. “I'm okay.”

Emily let out another few hiccups, rubbing at her eyes. They had hurt him bad, he was lying. And they would have hurt her like that if he hadn't gone.

 _Remember your manners,_ Miss Sheryl always, always said. And Emily didn't know if a _thank you_ was okay for something like that, but she knew she should try. “Thank you,” she whimpered. “For helping me.”

Mulder looked up at her, his eyes huge. “You're welcome,” he said, before coughing hard again.

Emily lay down beside him, looking up at the ceiling. “I don't want you to go again,” she said.

“I don't know if you have a choice,” said Mulder sadly.

Emily chewed at her thumbnail, blinking back more tears. She was scared and she hated it. She wanted to go home but she didn't know where home was.

“Let's play a game,” Mulder said suddenly, and he sounded sad and tired and hurt, but he said it anyway.

“Don't be silly,” Emily said in an angry sort of way. “What kind of game, anyway? What could we even play in here”

“I Spy. The alphabet game. Anything,” Mulder said, his voice determined, if subdued. “We can distract ourselves.”

Emily rubbed at her eyes again. She guesses it would be better than nothing. “I spy with my little eye something black,” she said finally.

There was a silence so long that Emily kind of worried that Mulder had fallen asleep again—the bad kind of sleep that came from pain. And then he said quietly, with effort: “Is it the border of the mattress?”

“No,” Emily said.

They kept playing as the men came back for something else, Mulder trying to talk loud to drown out the screams, until he fell back asleep.

\---

“Tell me about Dana,” said Emily.

Mulder felt like he was dying. He was weak; could barely stand, much less walk. He ate when Emily woke him, but he usually couldn't finish out of fear of vomiting and gave the rest of his meager rations to her. (She ate ravenously in a way that worried him; he needed to get her home.) He slept a lot, between experimentation sessions and Emily waking him up to talk or to play their millionth rendition of I Spy. He couldn't tell if she kept him talking because she was lonely or to keep him alive. But he sensed she was worried. She'd started sleeping restlessly, whimpering in the night as she tossed and turned. She called out for _Mommy_ or _Daddy_ sometimes, and Mulder didn't think she was talking about Scully. She was scared to death.

He rubbed at his eyes and cleared his throat. She seemed to sense that he liked to talk about Scully, he thought, or maybe she just wanted to hear about her. Wanted to daydream of an angelic mother who would come in to save her and take care of her and love her. If anyone could fit the bill, it would be Scully.

“She's beautiful,” said Mulder, and he was hit with a bout of longing so hard it hurt.

“I know,” said Emily wistfully. “I remember.”

Mulder gripped the cross in his hand weakly. “And she's a doctor,” he added. “And a scientist. And the most bada—strongest FBI agent in the world.”

“Like a superhero.”

“Kind of, yeah,” he offered. That was certainly how he saw her at times. “And she's smart,” he said. “Way smarter than me, or anyone else. And she doesn't like anyone to know it, but she can be one of the funniest people in the world.”

“Really?” Emily was cupping her chin in her hands, like a little kid being told a story. (Which, he realized, she kind of was. If only she was in a real bed with warm blankets and good food and not surrounded by dying people.)

“Mm-hmm,” he told her.

“Funnier than you, I bet,” she said slyly, and she sounded just like Scully as she said it.

He laughed weakly, and he felt it in every part of his body, a sudden surge of pain. “Hey, I'm not exactly at my best, kid.”

Emily's face turned solemn, the serious kid he remembered from years ago. “Will she love me?” she asked quietly. “Like my other mommy and daddy did?”

Mulder felt it swell up in his throat, the overwhelmed feeling: Scully's daughter was alive. “She already loves you, Em,” he croaked. He was already starting to get worn out; he'd have to go back to sleep soon. “She's loved you since she met you.”

Emily twirled a strand of hair around her finger shyly. “Really?”

“Losing you almost killed her,” said Mulder, remembering. She'd tried to hide it and almost succeeded, but he had seen it: the crying in the bathroom, the way she seemed to cave in on herself, the way she tensed up whenever they'd come across a missing child case. She loved Emily in a fierce way she herself probably didn't understand, and he knew that Emily had haunted her in the same way Samantha haunted him. Her guilt, her fear, the failure of the IVF a year ago. “She'll be so happy, Emily,” he said, his eyes lolling shut. “To know you're alive… She'll be overjoyed.”

Emily was quiet, curling up in a ball. And then she asked timidly, “Will you be there?”

“What?” mumbled Mulder, shifting on the mattress and wincing as pain shot through him.

“You're Dana's boyfriend,” Emily said in that same shy way. “And you said you might marry her, so…”

He suddenly realized what she was asking, and what was even worse was that he didn't know. He was terrified he wouldn't make it, that he'd never see Scully again. “I will,” he said anyway. “If it's possible, kiddo, I'll be right there with you and Dana.” He'd do anything for this kid; he'd realized it in the moment when he stood up and offered to go in her place.

“Even though you're not my dad?” Emily's voice was muffled as she buried her head in her knees.

“Even though I'm not your dad,” Mulder said. He'd promised himself that when he first met her, the little kid coloring scribbly potatoes on the floor with Scully. If they needed him, he'd be there.

Emily sniffled. “I wish we weren't here,” she said. “I wanna go back to Earth. I don't like it here.”

“I know,” Mulder said groggily. He could tell he wasn't long for this world; he was going to pass out soon.

Something caught the corner of his eye and he looked sleepily, and saw something he was eternally glad Emily couldn't see: two bounty hunters lugging Billy's wasted, bloody body across the floor. He was dead. It clearly hadn't been an easy death.

He had to get Emily out of here. He didn't have a choice.

When they took him back for experiments, he begged and pleaded til his throat was sore. _Please, let her go. You're not getting anything out of her anyway. You have to let her go, she's just a kid. Just let her go, please. I'll do anything._ And at one point before he passed out again, he thought he might have actually convinced them.

\---

When the men who looked alike brought Mulder back, crumpled and broken-looking like the doll Emily had accidentally dropped off a wall, they came for her as soon as they let him drop. “No!” Emily yelped, scrambling away. One of them grabbed her arm and she yanked it away.

“Em, you have to go with them,” Mulder mumbled. “They're not going to hurt you.”

Her eyes wide, she looked over at him, quivering in place. She shook her head in fear.

“It's okay, Em. It's okay,” said Mulder. “I talked to them, and they're going to take you back down there. It's going to be okay. I promise.”

“They're taking me back to Earth?” Emily whispered, scared and excited all at once. What would happen? Where would she go? “Are you coming?”

Mulder was looking at her sort of sleepily, dully; he shook his head.

She shook her head again, wildly. “I don't want to go,” she said, near pleading. “I don't want to go alone, Mulder, I'm scared.”

He propped himself up on one elbow even though it hurt a lot, she could tell. “You have to,” he said gently, even though it wasn't very loud. “You have to be brave, Em. Just get down to Earth and it'll all be okay.”

“I don't want to.” She scrambled off of the mattress and over to Mulder, wrapping her arms around his neck—gentle, so she wouldn't hurt him.

“I know.” He hugged her back, briefly, and left smears of red along her gown. She was crying again and didn't make a move to wipe her eyes. “It's okay,” Mulder said, and there was blood under his nose, at the corner of the mouth and on his cheeks, he looked really awful. “Remember. Dana Scully. She lives in Georgetown. She's in the FBI. You go to a police station and they'll call her. Tell them your name is Emily Sim and Mulder sent you, and she'll come. It'll be okay.”

Emily almost hiccuped with the force of her sobs. “I'm scared,” she said again. “What's going to happen to you when I'm gone?”

Mulder laughed a little, like it hurt but also like it was really funny. He fell into a brief coughing fit, but he kept talking. “Don't worry about me, Em,” he said, wiping his mouth that was red with blood. He reached behind him, grimacing as he did so, and unclasped Dana's necklace. He pressed it into her hands gently. “Take this. It's going to be okay.”

Emily curled her fist around the cross and gulped back tears.

The lookalike men grabbed her again, and she shrieked, but she couldn't fight them off. They pulled her away.

Mulder fell back onto the mattress as soon as they left, like he didn't have any bones. Emily gulped back tears of fear.

She woke up in a column of light, the rumbling of the ship as it went away. She was lying on the soft grass, facing the sky. She could see every single star. She wanted to cry. Her ankle hurt, bad; she thought maybe she had twisted it when she landed. She tried to stand, but it hurt too much; she fell back onto the grass. She wanted to cry really badly.

\---

She was cold, and out of nowhere, someone draped a blanket over her. At first she thought, _Mommy._ And then, _Dana._ “Dana?” she called, nervous. How had she found her?

A man bent over her, someone she didn't recognize. “My name is Jeremiah,” he said. “I'm here to help you.” His hand came down to rest on her ankle, and Emily tensed, but nothing bad happened. His hand was there for a minute and then all the pain was gone. It felt like she was okay.

She sat up gingerly, clutching the blanket around her with one hand and the necklace in her other sweaty fist. “I need to find Dana Scully,” she said. “She needs to help Mulder.”

“I will help Mulder,” Jeremiah said. “When he is returned, I'll heal him.”

“Dana Scully is my mommy,” Emily whispered. “I need to find her.”

“It's okay, little one.” Jeremiah took her hand and helped her to her feet. “I'll help you find her.”


	2. Chapter 2

A morning not long after Scully's ordeal with Mary Hendershot, she received a call from someone she really wasn't expecting to hear from. “Scully,” Gibson Praise said on the other end when she picked up. 

“Gibson,” Scully said with surprise. She hadn't expected to hear from him, especially not after the resentment he'd more or less displayed for her during their last encounter. She tried not to get her hopes up, the possibility that it was about Mulder. “What's going on? Is there something wrong?”

“I'm with someone named Jeremiah Smith,” said Gibson. “He can heal people and shapeshift, and he says you know him.”

Scully felt her heart thud in her chest. “Yes, I know him,” she said quietly. 

“He wants you to come out here, to Montana. He's been healing abductees and he says Mulder will be coming back soon. He wants to heal him, too.” 

Scully felt limp with relief, terror. Mulder was coming back? Mulder was hurt enough to need healing? “He's coming back?” she managed. 

“Yes, he is,” Gibson said. “And there's… something else.” He hesitated, silently, before adding, “I don't want to explain over the phone.”

Worry clogged her throat, worry and anticipation; she said, “Gibson, what is it?”

“Just… come to Montana,” Gibson said insistently. “Helena, Montana. I'll tell you where to find us. I'll explain when you get here.”

Any other time, a cryptic offer like that might have made her more suspicious, but Scully didn't have a choice. She missed Mulder so much it hurt. The lack of his presence still nearly physically hurt; she felt it deep in her chest, in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't give up a lead, no matter how cryptic. Her hand crept to her stomach, covering the baby. “I'll be there as soon as I can,” Scully said quietly. 

She left her apartment half an hour later, just barely missing a call from Doggett to tell her to come to the Bureau on an urgent matter: Teresa Hoese's return.

\---

Gibson called her cell phone as soon as she landed, directing her to an outpost in the wilderness. She drove with her hands clutching the wheel hard, jaw clenched, trying not to dwell on the possibilities. Mulder, hurt. Mulder, dead. Her head spun with the images in her mind. She offered up a quick prayer for him, her heart thudding hard in her chest. 

Gibson was waiting outside of the cabin for her. “Jeremiah isn't here,” he shouted as she got out of the car. “He had to go help a woman, Teresa something. We haven't seen any sign of Mulder yet.”

Scully quelled back the rise of disappointment in her throat. “Teresa Hoese?” she asked as she approached. “Was she returned?”

“Yeah, in bad shape, I think,” Gibson said, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Jeremiah will help her, though. He's good at that.”

Scully nodded in acknowledgement, shifting her bag on her shoulder. She swallowed back her fear that Teresa was in bad shape, what that meant for Mulder. “Should we go inside?” she asked, starting to step past him. 

“Scully, wait,” Gibson said, grabbing her arm. “Don't go in yet.”

Scully froze, pulling her arm out of the teenager's grip. “Why not, Gibson?” she asked, maybe a little coldly. Suddenly she couldn't stop picturing his broken body, crumpled on the ground. What were they trying to keep her from seeing?

Gibson hesitated, chewing at his bottom lip. “You remember your daughter?” he asked finally, gingerly. “Emily?” 

Coldness coursed through her veins like ice water, her hands going stiff around the keys. “H-how do you know about Emily?” she asked, definitely cold now. Nearly frigid. 

Gibson fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “She's… she's inside,” he said. “Emily, she's right inside.”

The coldness inscreased, a harsh reaction that made Scully feel like she was going to vomit. Morning sickness, she diagnosed idly. “That's impossible,” she said icily. “Emily died three years ago.”

Gibson was shaking his head. “No, that's just what they wanted you to think,” he said insistently. “They made her sick. It was an alien virus that made her look dead. And then they took her away.”

Scully shook her head. It was impossible, it couldn't be true. 

“Mulder met her during his abduction,” Gibson said, and he was starting to sound annoyed. “He projected to me. He wanted me to find her and make sure she was safe. Jeremiah found her, he—”

“Gibson, is she here?” A small figure pushed its way out of the cabin, darting out and then skidding to a stop at his side suddenly. It was a little girl. She looked up at Scully with a tremulous sort of expression. 

At first Scully thought,  _ Melissa.  _ And then she seemed to realize all at once that this thought didn't make any sense. The girl looked like a little girl she remembered from a few Christmases ago, her serious face staring up at her from the hospital bed, from the floor of the nursing home. Her face was the same, although thinner and older. Scully couldn't breathe.

“Are you Dana?” the girl asked, twisting her hand in the hem of her sweater. “Dana Scully?” There was a glint of gold at her neck, and with a hint of amazement, Scully saw that the girl was wearing her cross. The cross she'd given Mulder before he disappeared. 

Scully nodded. She felt unable to do anything else. “Yes,” she said softly. “I am.”

The girl—Emily—looked down shyly. “Mulder told me that you were my mommy,” she whispered. “He said you'd take care of me.”

A lump rose up in Scully's throat until she was absolutely certain she was going to cry. “Yes,” she whispered, too, tears rolling down her face. “I will. I promise.” 

Emily looked up, gingerly, before running at her, throwing her arms around her waist and burying her head in her stomach. Scully wrapped her arms around her daughter tightly, stifling sobs as she held her close. “Emily?” she whispered, questioningly, and Emily nodded, her tearstained face against her blouse. “Oh my god,” Scully whispered. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.” She was suddenly unable to do anything but apologize to her daughter who she'd let go. Who she never would've found if it weren't for… “I’m so sorry,” she said again, cupping the back of her head with one hand and wiping her eyes with the other. “I thought you were dead. I never would’ve let them take you away from me if I’d known.”

“T-that's what Mulder said,” Emily said, her voice rolling with her sobs. “H-he said you'd be happy to know t-that I'm alive.”

All that time of never knowing that her daughter was out there: hurt, scared, alone. Taken to wherever they'd taken Mulder. She never should have given up on her, she never should've stopped looking. “I would've never stopped looking if I'd known,” she tried to reassure, her voice wobbling, but she felt like no apology was substantial enough. All this time.

Emily clung hard to her, crying against her shirt. Scully kissed the top of her head briefly. Gibson had gone inside—probably to avoid the tearful family reunion—and it was just the two of them standing in the ankle-high grass. Her daughter was alive. She rocked her slightly, rubbing circles on her back. 

“We have to help Mulder,” Emily mumbled. “They're hurting him up there. He made them take him so they wouldn't hurt me.”

Tears flooded Scully's eyes again as she remembered: Mulder was out there somewhere. Mulder had taken care of her daughter, told Emily about her and gave her cross to her. They were hurting him somewhere. She let go of Emily, drawing back to kneel in front of her so she could look her in the eye. “You were up there with Mulder?” she asked, and Emily nodded. Scully swallowed back more tears and said, “Is he okay?”

Emily started to nod before reconsidering and shaking her head. “They were really mean,” she said. “Not just to Mulder, but to everyone else.” She wiped her nose. “He said maybe you could save him. Can you?”

Scully sniffled, stroking hair out of her face. “I'll do everything I can,” she said softly. “I promise.”

Emily wrapped her arms hard around her neck, pressing her face into her shoulder. Scully hugged her daughter. The two of them rocked back and forth. 

\---

Jeremiah didn't come back for a long time and Scully didn't leave. Emily drifted off to sleep a couple of hours after Scully arrived, sprawled out on one of the bed, so Scully sat beside her. Emily was too skinny, sleepy and malnourished, she noticed with a pang; her hair was long and tangly, the same color that Melissa's had been during childhood, more red than blonde. Scully combed through it with her fingers absently as she sat on the edge of the bed, nerves on edge. Her face was still wet from crying. She was scared about what Jeremiah would tell her, what she would have to face. Mulder's fate. Any of it.

Gibson sat on the floor near a staticy TV, watching  _ The Simpsons.  _ It made Scully think of when she knew him years ago. This kid who Mulder had thought was the key to the X-Files, who she'd never imagined having this much impact on her life.

“Thank you, Gibson,” she said, because she didn't know what else to say. “For taking care of her.” She didn't like having her daughter's fate in the hands of strangers, but she'd rather her be here, safe, then Jeremiah toting her around to abduction sites. 

Gibson ate a handful of orange popcorn without looking at Scully. “She's just a kid,” he said. “I don't like it when kids get mixed up in this.” He was talking about himself, she knew. “Besides,” he added, “this place has TV and food, and that's a better temporary setup than I had in Arizona.”

Scully hated to ask—after all the times she had failed to help him, all the times she and Mulder had more or less used him—but she had to. She said, “You said you talked to Mulder. When you did… was he…” She didn't want to know the answer, but she had to. 

Gibson turned to face her, his back blocking out the TV. He said solemnly, “He thinks he's dying.”

The words hit Scully like a wave; she thought she was going to throw up. Her hand stilled in Emily's hair, moved to clench around the blanket as she forced herself to ask, “Is… is he…” 

“It's not what he thinks, though,” Gibson added in what she supposed was supposed to be a comforting way. “Jeremiah told me. It's a virus the abductees have that keeps them alive, even if they die. They'll look dead, but they aren't. And he heals them.” He waved a hand at Emily's sleeping form. “It happened to her, too. They gave her an early stage of the virus and used it to fake her death. Except she won't turn into what the abductees’ll turn into if they aren't healed.”

Emily turned over in her sleep, her forehead bumping against Scully's knee. Scully put a hand on top of her head. “And what will they turn into?” she asked quietly.

Gibson shrugged. “Aliens, I think. I dunno. But it can be stopped.”

Scully stroked a hand over Emily's forehead. “How do you know all this, Gibson?”

Gibson shrugged, turning back to the TV. “Jeremiah. Snooping. I dunno.”

“Are you saying that it's too late to save Mulder?” Scully asked, her voice a little sharp. 

“No. I'm saying it's not too late. I'm saying he still has a chance.”

Scully looked down at Emily, sleeping restlessly on the bed. She could see her eyes moving rapidly with her dreams. It seemed impossible that she was here, alive. It seemed impossible that Scully could get back almost everything she had lost just like that. She put her other hand over her stomach; she couldn't help it. She was a mother and her children weren't dead. And neither was her partner. They might be able to save him. 

“God,” she muttered desperately under her breath. “I hope so.”

\---

The day was long and one of the stranger Scully had experienced. Emily slept half of the day, to the point where Scully was starting to get concerned. “She needs to go to a hospital,” she said to Gibson at one point, feeling Emily's forehead with the back of her hand. She was warm, but not enough to be overly concerning. Still. Alien healer or not, she needed medical attention. 

Gibson shook his head immediately. “She can't,” he said. “Not until we find Mulder. If we leave her alone, they'll come for her again, and we can't leave Mulder alone, either.”

Scully bit her lower lip, pushing hair off of her face. “We don't have any guarantee that Mulder will be back soon,” she said softly, much as it hurt to say it. 

“We don't have any guarantee that he won't,” Gibson said insistently. 

Scully looked back at Emily, her too-pale daughter who she'd thought was dead for years, and decided. “She needs medicine, at least, and real food,” she said. “Will you be okay here if I run to the store?”

“We were the past couple days,” Gibson replied. 

Scully rummaged in her pocket until she found her keys. “I'm going to go, but I'll be back in an hour or two,” she told him. “Make sure Emily knows I haven't… abandoned her if she wakes up. Okay?”

Gibson nodded, his attention already mostly on the TV. 

Scully bent over and kissed Emily softly on the forehead. She half-hoped Emily would wake up so she could clarify where she was going, but she stayed firmly asleep. Scully left the cabin slowly, half-reluctant, but she did manage to leave. 

Her mind swirled with thoughts the entire time she was gone. Mulder, Emily, whether or not he'd be okay when he'd return, where the hell they'd go from here. She thought she might could feel the baby moving, but she dismissed it as a nervous stomach. She couldn't calm down; her heart thudding during the entire shopping trip. She just wanted them safe, Mulder and Emily, she wanted to take them home. Wherever the hell home would be. She'd barely allowed herself to plan for the baby—it was still so early and she felt a tremendous guilt doing any of it without Mulder—much less having her six-year-old daughter return from the dead. She couldn't allow herself to plan now, it was too mind boggling. What if the state took Emily away, what if she had to leap through hoop after hoop and she didn't even get to keep her daughter? What if Emily was angry because of the new baby, felt replaced? What if there was something wrong with the baby? What if Mulder was dead?

She drove back to the cabin, feeling nauseous in a not unfamiliar manner after weeks of morning sickness. There was a car outside when she arrived, and she spared a quick prayer for the hope that Emily and Gibson were still safe. 

Emily was sitting inside when she entered, at the kitchen table with her feet swinging, and Scully's shoulders sagged with relief when she saw her. Emily turned her head and offered Scully a shy smile. “Hi, Dana.” 

Scully smiled back, wider in an attempt to reassure her. God, it was a miracle that she was even here. “Hi, Emily,” she said in an unusually sunny voice for all the fear she felt, setting the grocery bags down on the table.

Emily kicked the table leg with a bare foot. “Jeremiah came back,” she said. “He says he hasn't found Mulder yet, but he says he helped some other lady.”

Scully bit her lower lip, squeezing her skinny shoulder. Towards the back of the cabin, a door opened and a man who didn't look very much like Jeremiah Smith came out. Scully stepped closer to Emily on instinct, but the man's face shifted before she could say anything, to the familiar face of Jeremiah. Her mouth fell open a little, her hand tightening on Emily's shoulder. 

“I must ask that you keep a certain amount of discretion,” Jeremiah said. “I've been hiding out with a cult near here, healing abductees, and if I'm exposed, I'll be unable to save people.”

Scully looked down at Emily, who was staring at the tabletop. She squeezed her shoulder briefly before letting go. “Do you know where Mulder is?” she asked in a thin voice. 

He shook his head. “But the FBI is here. Investigating the return of abductees. I had to sneak out Teresa Hoese just to be able to heal her.”

“You healed Teresa Hoese?” Scully asked, her heart thudding. It made sense that the FBI would be here, that would explain all the missed calls on her cell phone, but the repeated reiteration of abductees needing healing, appearing to be  _ dead  _ terrified her. What had they done to him? “How bad was she?”

Jeremiah hesitated briefly before saying, “If I hadn't interfered, I don't think she would have lived.”

There was a small whimpering sound below Scully, and she looked down to see Emily's fearful face. She wrapped an arm around her skinny frame and whispered, “It's okay.” But she didn't know that she believed that. 

Jeremiah was still talking. “That's why it's essential that I am not exposed,” he said. “I must heal them.”

Scully chewed her lower lip. “You'll heal Mulder,” she said. “When he comes back.”

“Yes.”

Emily tugged on the side of her shirt, startling her. “He healed me,” she said. “When I landed. I hurt my ankle, and he helped.”

Scully was struck with sudden memories of Mulder's mother's illness years ago, Mulder's search for Jeremiah Smith. (It was still a little stunning to remember that Mulder’s mother had passed, remember when she had autopsied the grandmother of her future child. She tried not to think about it.) Mulder's half-tearful account of their trip to Canada, finding the clone of his sister that he was unable to save. She hadn't known Smith well, but she supposed she knew what he could do. And she had to believe that he could help them. 

She offered Emily a small smile. “Thank you,” she said to Jeremiah, stroking hair off of Emily's forehead.

When she turned back to Jeremiah, his face had changed again, to the way it'd looked before. “I need to be going,” he said. “You can stay here for the time being. Gibson is in the other room. I will alert him if I see your partner.”

Scully nodded. She watched awkwardly as Jeremiah left, standing by Emily's chair until the door closed behind him. She had no idea what to do; she loathed sitting here and waiting, helpless. She wanted to be out there looking, but she couldn't leave Emily. She didn't want to.

Emily tugged on her shirttail again and she looked down. “Mulder will be happy to see you,” she said. Her eyes were the bright, clear, serious blue that reminded Scully of her sister and mother, her face solemn. “He missed you a lot up there,” she added. 

Scully gulped so she wouldn't tear up and tried to smile. “I missed him,” she said, sitting across from Emily at the table. “I missed you, too.”

“Really?” Emily asked in a cautious sort of way. “You did?”

“Mm-hmm.” She took Emily's hand and squeezed it reassuringly. All the nights of guilt over the new baby, the grief over the child she'd lost. She'd missed her with a fierce sort of hopelessness; she hadn't thought she'd ever see her again.

She couldn't imagine what Emily had gone through—again, Mulder's family came to mind, Samantha and her diary detailing the horrible things she had experienced—and she felt an immense degree of protectiveness building in her chest, some maternal instinct. “Listen,” she said, looking her daughter in the eyes. “Emily, I want you to know… this is all going to be over soon. We're going to find Mulder, and then we're going to get out of here.”

“We'll go home?” Emily asked in that same nervous, shy way she'd been communicating, like Scully was going to turn her away, somehow. 

She didn't know what the law would have to say about her adopting Emily. If she'd be able to, if they'd have to go through some trial period. But she didn't care about that at the moment. Her daughter was alive, and she was going to keep her safe in whatever way she could. “Yes,” she said. “We will.”

\---

Emily ended up falling asleep on the bed she had before after eating dinner. She seemed exhausted, and Scully reciprocated, the fatigue from a flight and the other emotionally taxing activities of the day catching up to her. She slept beside Emily on the overlarge bed, partially out of a fear of leaving her alone and partially out of not particularly knowing where else to go. She slept restlessly, plunged into a nightmare of Mulder badly hurt on the ship somewhere. The kind of nightmares she had when he'd first disappeared. She woke up gasping in fear, running to the bathroom to retch into the toilet.  _ Morning sickness,  _ she tried to tell herself, letting her forehead rest against the cool porcelain of the toilet tank. 

“Dana?” She looked up and saw Emily standing in the doorway, looking at her with concern. 

Scully wiped her mouth before standing shakily and flushing the toilet. “I'm okay,” she said. When Emily shot her a suspicious look, she insisted, “Really, I'm fine. I promise.” She didn't want to tell Emily about the baby, especially not before she told Mulder. That was an explanation that could come later. 

Emily had nightmares of her own that night, and Scully tried her best to calm her. She couldn't fall back asleep, so she waited, for news of what had happened with Mulder or for an instance where Emily would need comforting from her. No news came all night. 

The next day, she continued to hear nothing about Mulder. Gibson reappeared from one of the back rooms to park himself in front of the TV. Emily watched with him some—she declared several times that it was boring there, although not as bad as the plane was (the haunted degree in her voice horrifying Scully)—but mostly, she seemed to want to talk. She had questions for Scully about herself, about her family and her job and Mulder. She turned the subject back to the fact that Mulder had apparently called himself her boyfriend. “He said he might marry you someday,” she said at one point with a smug smile, and Scully didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 

No news for the entire day. 

Emily and Gibson huddled in front of the TV as it got dark, Emily wrapped in the blankets Scully kept giving her because it was freezing. She paced the small kitchen area, on edge, her gun on the table. None of them had heard from Jeremiah all day, not Gibson or Scully or anyone. 

The moon rose in the sky. Emily fell asleep with her cheek pressed to the fibers of the carpet. Gibson stayed in the main area, sitting with his back against a chair. When Scully gave him a questioning look, he simply said, “I think something might happen tonight.”

She honestly didn't know if she'd prefer that or nothing to happen. Her nerves were shot; she couldn't relax, much less sleep. She excused herself and went to stand outside, the cold air bearing through Mulder's coat, the one she'd been wearing since November. She shivered, burying her hands in the pockets. Her breath puffed out in front of her. She hated this, sitting around and waiting for something to happen. She'd been forced to do that for months, with no leads on Mulder. She wanted him back. She had her daughter back and she needed Mulder back, too. 

She stared at the half-frozen grass for a few minutes before looking up, twisting her fingers in the sweaty threads of the coat’s pocket and starting to turn around. But she saw something that made her freeze in her tracks as she turned. It was Mulder. 

It was Mulder and yet not Mulder, like he was only partially there. Almost see through. He didn't say anything, didn't move. He was just watching her, in a careful, tender sort of way. Like he'd come to say goodbye. 

Scully watched him, too, refusing to take her eyes off of him. Every second felt too long, too much time not moving.  _ Mulder _ . The word rose in her throat, but she didn't say it. She couldn't move. 

“Scully!” The door slammed behind her, and she turned in time to see Gibson burst out, slightly frantic. “The FBI found the cult compound where Jeremiah is healing abductees. They're keeping him there. He says he has to go help Mulder.”

More words caught in her throat, things she wanted to plead for. Things she wanted to say. She whirled around and saw nothing where Mulder had been. Like he'd never been there. Something Gibson had said before sprung up in her mind:  _ He thinks he's dying. They'll look dead, but they aren't.  _ She remembered the feeling of Emily's life leaving her body as she lay beside her, but it hadn't happened. She hadn't been dead. Was it possible that Mulder had… 

“I saw him,” she said breathlessly, her breath puffing out in front of her. She felt like she could sob. “He was here, he…”

Gibson touched her arm briefly. “Scully, we have to go,” he insisted, in the rushed teenager way he had about him. “It's the only way to save Mulder.” 

Scully understood. She went inside and put Mulder's coat on Emily, carried her out to the car and covered her with the blankets before strapping her in. She wanted her to be warm; it was so cold outside. Emily never even woke up. 

They were running out of time.

\---

Gibson directed her to the compound where he claimed the FBI was holding the cultists, where they were holding Jeremiah. Scully saw the scattering of generic black cars on the lawn as she pulled up to the house, but no signs of Doggett or Skinner. She was immensely relieved; helpful as they'd been throughout the search, she didn't want to have to stop and explain what she was doing. The little girl curled up in the backseat. 

She threw the car into park at the edge of the field with a heavy hand. “I'll go find Mulder,” Gibson said, in a surprisingly commanding voice for his age. “He's in the woods somewhere, Jeremiah is showing me. You go get Jeremiah and bring him out here.”

“Okay,” agreed Scully breathlessly, rummaging in her pocket for her badge. 

“Don't call him by his name,” Gibson insisted tensely. “He says to not expose him. He says that's important.”

“Okay,” Scully repeated, a little irritable herself. All she wanted was to find Mulder, and yet she never wanted to see what was in those woods. She was terrified of what they'd find. 

“Dana?” said a small voice from the backseat. 

Scully twisted in her seat and saw Emily blinking up at her from the backseat. “Where are you going?” she whispered. “Can I come?” 

“Sweetie, no,” said Scully, shaking her head. “I'm going to get Mulder, but I need you to stay here, okay? I need you to stay here and wait for me. Try to sleep. I'll be right back.” 

Emily blinked at her in confusion for a few seconds before nodding and nestling back into the nest of coats and blankets. 

“Okay,” Scully breathed briefly, before turning and getting out of the car. She hated leaving Emily alone, but leaving her back at the cabin would have been worse and she didn't know what they'd find here. 

Gibson took off in a run towards the forest while she forced herself not to run up to the house.  _ Running will look suspicious,  _ she told herself firmly. The agents out front let her in after she told them she was with Doggett. She found a man who looked like Jeremiah's alternate face back at the cabin and hauled him out of the cabin. 

She waited until they were out of earshot before hissing in a quiet, frantic voice, “Where's Mulder?”

“He's here,” said Jeremiah. “On the property.” He paused for a moment before adding, “We must hurry.”

Scully let go of his arm where she was gripping it and took off at a run into the woods. 

She saw Gibson before she saw Mulder, standing in a copse of trees with his shoulders hunched up around him. “Where is he?” she called, nearly shouting, and Gibson turned. His face was nearly white, his eyes wide with fear. He looked the way he had when they'd found him after his brain surgery. And that was when she saw the crumpled figure on the ground.

“How bad is he?” she demanded, refusing to believe. “How bad is he hurt?” She heard the pounding feet behind her: Jeremiah. When Gibson didn't answer, she pushed past him. She pushed past him and then she saw Mulder, really saw him and understood.

“No,” she said, horror mounting inside her. He was lying in an unnatural position, crumpled like someone had dropped him. His face and arms were scarred. Gibson had thrown a blanket he must have taken from the car over him. His eyes were closed. “No,” she said, unbelieving. There was no way he could look like that, so helpless and lifeless and… 

She fell to her knees beside him, touching his face, and then she knew for sure. He was so cold. “No, no,” she insisted, pleaded, a hysterical feeling rising in her throat. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to scream, she wanted to hurt someone. She couldn't, she couldn't lose him. She wanted to find that ship and burn it in the ground. 

Jeremiah touched her arm and she whirled on him, almost hitting him in the face, her knuckles barely missing his jaw. He didn't move back, just looked down on her with the face she recognized, calmly. “Let me help him,” he said gently. “I can help him, Agent Scully. Just step back.” 

Her chin trembling, quivering from head to toe, she nodded. “Please,” she whispered. She couldn't lose him. “Please.” 

She stumbled away to allow Jeremiah access, but not too far. She knelt on the cold ground beside him and took his hand.  _ It's okay,  _ she told him silently, but tears were rolling down her face. She gripped his cold fingers tightly, trying to keep him from slipping away. 

Jeremiah placed his hand on Mulder's forehead. His scars began to fade, slowly. Scully closed her eyes. She kissed Mulder’s palm and pressed her nose against it. She didn't let go, and he began to get warmer. She didn't open her eyes until she heard a shuddering breath, like someone coming to life. 

When she opened her eyes, Mulder’s eyes were still closed. But his scars were gone, his skin healthy again. And he was breathing. He looked as if he was just asleep. 

She choked out a sob of relief. “Oh my god,” she whispered, moving closer to him. She touched his face, his hair, the side of his neck where his pulse beat under her hand. “He's alive? He's okay?”

“You need to get him to the hospital,” said Gibson, the first she'd heard out of him in a while. He sounded sick to his stomach. “But, yeah. He's alive.”

Jeremiah put his hand on her shoulder. “I must go,” he said in a low voice. “I can't let them keep me here.”

Scully nodded, barely hearing what he was saying. She bent over Mulder and kissed his forehead, whispered, “You're going to be okay.” He didn't respond, but he was breathing. That was all that mattered.  

She didn't notice Jeremiah leave. She called an ambulance with trembling fingers. “My partner is unconscious and needs medical attention,” she said into the phone. She told herself again and again that he was alive.

\---

While the paramedics attended to Mulder and the agents fluttered around asking questions, Scully went to retrieve Emily from the car. She didn't want to leave either of them alone. They could ride to the hospital in the ambulance with Mulder. 

Emily was awake, blinking in surprise as she approached. “Dana?” she asked, shoving aside blankets and moving to greet her. “Did you find him?” 

Scully nodded, smiling a little with relief. She couldn't help it. So close, they'd been so close. “Mulder’s okay,” she said, wiping away a stray tear and smoothing back Emily's hair. “He has to go to the hospital for a little while, but he's going to be okay.”

“Are we going to go with him? Can we go see him?” Emily asked gingerly.

Scully nodded. “C’mon and we'll go see him,” she whispered. She took Emily's cold hand and walked with her towards the ambulance, Mulder’s large black coat dragging the ground. 

Emily gasped a little when they climbed in next to Mulder, who was still unconscious on the stretcher. “Is he okay?” she whispered to Scully anxiously. 

Scully nodded. “He's fine,” she said, trying to be reassuring. She could barely believe it herself, but he was. She smiled inadvertently. “He's just… not awake right now. But he's fine, I promise.”

Emily's mouth twisted a little, but she nodded. Scully squeezed her hand comfortingly, to reassure herself as much as Emily. He'd be okay. They sat together beside the stretcher, and Scully reached for Mulder’s hand where it dangled off of the stretcher. Emily let go of her hand and leaned into her side bonelessly. “My first parents died,” she whispered, and Scully shuddered, rubbed a hand over Emily's hand comfortingly. She still felt sorry for the Sims on occasion, their experiment daughter and their murders, the parents Emily had lost too young. She couldn't resent them; it wasn't a fate that anyone deserved. “But Mulder won't die,” Emily added softly. “Will he?”

“No,” Scully said coldly, determinedly. “No, he won't.” She hugged Emily a little from the side. “It'll be okay.”

One of the paramedics bent over Mulder, drawing blood. Much as Scully wanted to interfere, try to help them, she forced herself to hold back. To just be content with sitting on the floor of the ambulance holding his hand. He was okay, he was alive, and he'd wake up eventually. She would thank him for taking care of her daughter. She would tell him about the baby. 

There was a shriek from outside, a gasped, “Oh my god!” A sudden blue-yellow light passing over the ground. The light from Skinner's stories of Oregon, when the UFO had taken Mulder. 

Scully tensed from head to toe.  _ Nonononono,  _ a very small part of her mind protested; the rest of her went into action. She kept a hard grip on Mulder with one hand; she wrapped her other arm around Emily fiercely. Emily had her head buried in Scully's side—whether it was from fatigue or fear, she didn't know. Mulder breathed easily. She held onto them both tightly and shut her eyes. Whatever happened, she wouldn't lose either of them again. 

The ambulance stayed still, not shaking, not flooded with light. Her heart thundered hard against her ribs. The screams were faint, far off. Maybe, maybe they didn't want them.

She opened her eyes again when the ambulance started moving, its sirens wailing above her. Both Mulder and Emily were still there.

\---

They put Mulder in a private room at the hospital, thankfully. Scully requested a cot; Emily needed to rest. She tucked her in with the thin hospital blanket, brushed hair off of her forehead and told her to sleep. Emily protested vehemently, in the way of little kids, but she was conked out in five minutes straight. Scully smiled fondly as she sat in the chair provided, positioned between the bed and the cot. Motherhood felt unfamiliar, something she wasn't very good at, but she felt like she would grow into it. And she already loved her child—both her children, she had to remind herself—with a fierceness she found surprising. The doctors asked about Emily, and she told them that Emily was her daughter. 

She got phone calls from Skinner, from Doggett. She answered, briefly, if only to reassure them that she was fine, that Mulder was fine and would wake up soon. They both seemed relieved, Skinner in a more overt way; she knew his guilt over losing Mulder had been horrible, how hard he'd been looking. He promised to come by and check on Mulder as soon as they got things cleared up at the cult’s compound. She sensed he wanted to clear things up about _ how,  _ exactly, she'd found Mulder as well as check on Mulder, but she didn't really care. She didn't mention Emily to either of them.

Mulder slept peacefully. The nurses came occasionally to take blood or check his vitals, but by all appearances, he seemed fine. They did scans, as she requested, to check him for the brain disease he'd been suffering prior to his abduction, but she was praying that Jeremiah's healing job had done more than just bring Mulder back to life.

He looked fine, scarily fine. If Scully hadn't known what he had gone through, she would've thought he didn't need to be in the hospital. She held his hand in hers, refusing to let go.

She dozed off at some point, slumped in the hard chair. She didn't remember falling asleep, but she started awake out of nowhere at a strange sensation coming from her abdomen. Blinking, she sat up and put a hand on the slightest swell of her stomach, but she didn't recognize what it was until it happened again. 

“The baby's kicking,” she muttered out loud to herself in near disbelief. After everything that had happened in the past few days, it seemed impossible. Mulder was alive, Emily was alive, and the baby was kicking. Her mouth lifted up at the corners in a small smile.

“What's happening?” Scully jolted a little bit before looking over at the cot. Emily was sitting up on it, legs crossed, watching her curiously. “Did you say baby? You have a baby?”

The baby kicked again, just under her palm. Scully smiled. She was barely showing—she’d been able to hide her pregnancy thus far under larger shirts and coats, people didn't often ask about it—but this was real, it was really happening. She decided in a split second. “Yes,” she said calmly. “Emily, a couple of months ago, I found out that I… that Mulder and I were going to have a baby.”

Emily blinked in shock. “A baby? Mulder didn't tell me about that,” she said in a half-bemused, half-surprised voice.

Scully swallowed hard, said, “He didn't know.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “But the baby just kicked for the first time.”

“Really?” Emily stared at her stomach in a skeptical sort of way. “It's kicking in there?” 

Scully nodded. “Want to feel?” she offered. 

Emily moved forward in a cautious sort of way, laying her hand tentatively next to Scully's. When the baby kicked again, she yanked her hand away, her eyes widening in surprise. “That feels so weird!” she said, giggling a little. “Why does that feel so weird?”

Scully laughed a little, too, the emotion bizarre considering everything else. “It feels weirder on my end, you know,” she said, and Emily laughed harder.

“Scully?” 

She almost thought she didn't hear it. She turned, slowly, towards the bed, and saw him. Mulder was awake, half-sitting up, and staring at them both in shock. “Em?” he asked, a little confused, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“Mulder!” Emily scrambled up off of the cot and went to hug him. 

Scully swallowed hard, smiled through her tears. The baby kicked harder. Mulder was hugging Emily back, but his eyes were on her, full of questions. He was here, he was really here.

“Hi,” she whispered weepily, but she was smiling. She reached out to take his hand. 

He kept an arm around Emily and reached for her with the other. He smiled back, a little shakily, a little confused, but very relieved. “Hi,” he whispered back.


End file.
